Where do you suppose a school goes for its eighth grade educational tour if the school’s already located in Washington D.C.? I mean, those kids have probably seen the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial a few million times, right?

At least I hope so. The nation’s Capital is so full of treasures for student travel that I’d like to think the students who live there take advantage of them. I have to wonder, though, if they feel that same surge of pride and inspiration that the rest of us feel when we visit for the first time. If you grow up there, I wonder if you take these beautiful attractions for granted like the rest of us take for granted our local department stores and parks. Surely not.

After all, what local attraction of our own can compare to the government buildings in D.C., the White House, the National Mall, and the amazing wealth of museums in Washington D.C. for just about every interest you can imagine? None of them really.

Maybe those born and raised in the Capital expand their historical tours to cities nearby. Washington D.C. and New York City are actually close enough to combine into one great educational tour. Throw Philadelphia student tours into the mix, and you’ve got one of our favorite three-city combos for student travel.

Philadelphia actually offers an attraction that has been the number one visited tourist attraction in the United States on the Forbes list. It’s the Independence National Historical Park and includes Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was adopted, and the famous Liberty Bell, which students and other groups have enjoyed visiting for years. Whether or not the bell was used for some of the most important events attributed to it through legend, it still represents our country’s greatest principles of liberty, equality, and freedom.

So maybe the students who live in Washington D.C. have paid homage at Lincoln’s statue since they were very young and perhaps they’ve seen the view from Washington Monument enough to have it memorized. But they can’t have seen it all. And if they do need to spread their touring wings, there are many great historical and educational sites in Philadelphia to add to the itinerary.

Photo by MCS@flickr.

Why only visit an exciting city when you can be part of the attraction?

Performance groups, pay attention. There are several amazing destinations in the country that welcome high school students throughout the year to specific festivals and performances. Imagine you and your group traveling beyond the four walls of the band room and taking all your hard work and practice to the streets of a city you’ve always wanted to visit. You’ll be the performers, the action, the show. You’ll meet other performers your age and get to tour some of the attractions that make the destination so exciting in the first place. Here’s a glimpse at what I’m talking about.

New York City – Among others, you’ll find the Festival of Music where you can perform in the Sarah Vaughan Concert Hall in Newark Symphony Hall. Then catch a classic Manhattan attraction and eat at Planet Hollywood, Hard Rock Cafe, or the popular and dramatic Mars 2112.

Atlanta – In this vibrant city you’ll perform at the Alton Keith Performing Arts Center. You’ll want to do your best for the awards ceremony that follows, and you’ll enjoy a truly southern picnic as part of this Festival.

Boston – Boston is an exciting, modern city with loads of historical sites as well. Its Back Bay is a must-see section for any visitor. Bands and orchestras will perform their pieces for the Boston Festival of Music at the Duxbury Performing Arts Center. Choirs will be at the Silver Lake Performing Arts Center.

Chicago – This city will have you thrilled from your first glimpse of its world-famous architecture to every step along the Magnificent Mile. Performance tours will split up in Chicago between Harper College and Elgin Community College. For an added attraction in this city, how about a meal and theatrical tournament at Medieval Times?

Orlando – For performance tours that put all the rest to shame, you’ll love four days in Orlando, Florida at Disney World’s Magic Music Days. You know there’s plenty to do in this exciting location. You’ll get a hopper pass to enjoy all the Disney major theme parks at your leisure and you’ll enjoy the time of your life as young performers gather for some of the most fun you’ll ever experience.

Traveling with your band or choir is a once-in-a-lifetime experience (if not once-a-year, which sounds even better). You’ve spent hours together working and sweating your way through songs you’ve now perfected. It’s time to let them see a stage prepared just for you and groups like yours, and then let your hair down for some fun.

Photo by pdxjeff on Flickr

If you watch ABC, you may notice your favorite characters volunteering during their storylines this week. It’s part of ABC’s push toward “a better community” through giving back.

There are lots of destinations that lend themselves best to student volunteering around the country. National parks offer cleanup and maintenance opportunities that bring you close to nature. Zoos, wildlife preserves, humane societies, and other organizations let you volunteer with animals. And there are any number of habitats for humanity and Red Cross projects  grateful for the extra help from teens. These tours can be exciting because you can bookend the volunteering with fun theme parks or other popular sites.

But ABC and other volunteer organizations are hoping to get the word out that there are many volunteer opportunities right where you live. Before raising the travel money for Yellowstone, why not call your own Parks and Recreation department? I’m sure they could put a group of teens to work. Though volunteering tends to be its own reward, you’ll sometimes find other benefits when you get in touch with community leaders. My friends and I once cleared a cemetery of fallen acorns then took them to the conservation department for cash. It helped us raise money for other projects we were working toward.

Besides working with nature, many organizations provide help to your peers and neighbors through their various services. You can probably find a local chapter of the Red Cross or even a Habitat for Humanity home in your area. Check around and you may also find ways to help homes for battered women and children, youth in foster care, or a food depot.

Remember that we are all connected, and when we help each other, we really do help ourselves. Open your eyes to the community around you. Listen for the needs that might be right next door. And start volunteering now to begin a lifetime of giving back.

Photo by laura.ouimette on Flickr

Besides educational tours and graduation trips, some high school students might want to focus their student travel on researching destinations for their future. More specifically, they want to answer the question, “Where am I going to go for college?”

Fortunately, great universities and colleges around the country are located in exciting destinations near some of the more popular attractions for student tours anyway. This way, you can turn your New York City student tours into a discovery of New York University and pretty Washington Square where much of the campus is located. Or consider Boston student tours. Stroll the walkways on one of the most famous campuses in the nation at Harvard Square, then fill out your itinerary with The Freedom Trail, the Boston Museum of Science and Omni Theater, plus other beautiful Boston sites like the Back Bay and Boston Public Garden.

Of course, there may be colleges in lesser known locations you’d like to tour. Chances are, you’ll find hidden treasure around almost any college campus. One of our travel writers recently wrote about Truman State University campus tours in Kirksville, Missouri. Having made the campus his home for several years, he knows all the best food and shopping locations nearby. In fact, this may be just the ticket for campus tours no matter where you are: Trust your guide. Get a hold of the campus ahead of time (or arrange these details with a travel professional) and find out what you may find nearby and how long you could plan to spend in the area. You may be surprised what you discover nearby, and imagine what it could add to your decision making.

(Photo of an outdoor hall on the Truman State University campus by TommyNguyen on Flickr).

So, that first step can be intimidating. You’re interested in a trip – after all, who isn’t? But you don’t know for sure if you can get it approved through the powers that be. You have no idea what to expect as far as cost is concerned. (Will your group need to do fundraisers? Can the school pay for it?) And you don’t know where to begin.

My advice? Don’t wait. Travel professionals are trained for this. They take your hm-maybe-kindas and turn them into actual places, an educated estimate, and a specialized itinerary. This is a proposal, and at that point it’s in your hands to decide. You don’t lose anything by making that first call or filling out the initial travel request form.

Here are some tips to put you ahead of the game for that first contact with your travel professional. These are things they’re going to want to know about you and your group, so they can customize your tour.

Who are you? The professional needs an idea on the size of your group and the age range. If you have specific interests (Ooh, we adore history! Or art. Or parks and gardens. Or perhaps, Just show us the food…).

What do you want most? Besides your interests, what does your group expect as far as the pace is concerned or the theme? Are we thinking theme park city? Or do you prefer relaxing beaches? Perhaps you’re looking for a steady series of educational sites and tours. If you can be specific here, you’re more likely to get exactly the tour you desire.

What can’t you do? Here’s where you tell the professional if you have a specific time frame, budget, or other special requirements.

What’s it going to take to make this happen? It will be good if you have at least a small idea about the red tape. With whom do you need to approve this trip in order to make it happen? With student tours, this usually includes at least the school’s administration and often the parents. Tell your professional what you need and when. Their ability to comply at this stage will give you even greater confidence about the tour itself.

So gather a little information and then take the plunge. Finding out whether you’ve got an exciting destination in your future? It’s just a click away.

It’s September, and I hope you seniors especially are right in the middle of all that fast-paced planning that comes with getting out of high school and moving on with your future. Hopefully, between planning the announcements, organizing the parties, signing yearbooks, and paying for it all – you’re getting the details lined out for the trip. You probably should have thought of it before now, but it is NOT too late to plan student beach trips and other popular student travel perfect for celebrating gradation.

Student travel can seem overwhelming at first. But here are a couple of things that will put you ahead of the game and maybe help you convince the powers that be to just plan the awesome trip already!

Numbers

When getting organized for student travel, think numbers, especially if you’re traveling my motor coach. These buses typically hold a maximum of 55 passengers. If you’ve got 58 people signed up for the trip, it’s time to do some recruiting. If you’re going to have to rent that second coach anyway, it will be much more cost effective for everyone if you get more people to fill it. More people in the seats equals more people footing the bill. The more people you have footing the bill, the less any one person has to pay.

Chaperones

Along those lines, keep this in mind: With most tours, one chaperone travels free per ten students. So figure those parents and teachers in with your final count. Also, consider them in your recruiting process.

Bottom line: Numbers matter. It’s just one of the many reasons you need to plan ahead!

Unlike many travel companies, we specialize in group travel. We’ve been customizing student travel to Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, Orlando – and many, many more exciting cities – since we began. These student travel destinations are excellent for educational tours and for leisure, and we know just how to get you there and how to help you make the most of your time until the moment you leave.

So, what makes a group?

As long as your group is greater than fifteen, we can take care of anything. This removes so much hassle from your planning, and we love to do it. We’ve got you covered on reservations for your hotels, any tours you hope to experience, as well as transportation. We’ll help you plan an itinerary designed around your group’s interests and that perfectly suits your needs.

What if our group is less than fifteen?

If you’re traveling with a smaller number, we’ve still got great resources on our site to help make the planning easier. Start with our destinations page if you haven’t chosen a city, and take a look at some of our sample itineraries for great ideas on which attractions to include. Once you know where you’re going, you need to get there. Use our student travel airfare page to help you book the best prices available.

We’ve got everything you need for large or small groups. Student travel is our passion, an excellent learning opportunity, truly inspiring, and something we want to see every student experience at least once. When you take advantage of our travel professionals or the tools on our website, you’re guaranteeing a once-in-a-lifetime experience to your group. And that’s when we know we’ve done our job.

When it comes to themes for student travel, volunteering tops the list these days. We’re all looking for a life-changing experience in which we not only gain appreciation for the earth and our place in it, we also give back in a way that changes us forever. 

Although today’s media notoriously fails to focus on the greatest needs around the world, we do live in the age of connection. With the technology of the internet and the immediacy with which news can travel, we are more aware than ever that we share the planet with endangered animals, underprivileged families, and nations devastated by war, poverty, and genocide.

We know many of you have focused on different areas of need for years now. For you, creating a student tour to a location where you can provide some sort of aid is far more enticing than roller coasters, wax museums, or the beach. We want to help you make these visions a reality.

Perhaps your heart belongs to endangered animals. Our opportunities to volunteer abroad include working with several different species, endangered and otherwise. Or perhaps you want to build homes for those who don’t have them or volunteer in an orphanage. Our volunteer student tours offer trips to the rainforest of Ecuador, a tropical island in Thailand, Costa Rica, Honduras, South Africa and more with a variety of opportunities working with the needs closest to your heart. 

For your next student tour, consider volunteering. The benefits belong to you as well as to those you help. And there are simply too many needs to ignore.

Recognize this building? It’s the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington D.C., commonly known as the FBI, and it’s just one of the D.C. sites you’ll visit on one of the latest theme tours to hit our websites, the Law and Order tour.

The sites on this tour are all about crime, punishment, justice, and the investigative process. You’ll see law and order through history and today, honor fallen heroes, learn the tools of the trade, and discover some of the most common law enforcement issues like the fight on drugs. 

Some of the other sites include the National Law Enforcement Museum and the memorial by the same name, dedicated to men and women who have fallen in the line of law enforcement duty. The first known such death was in 1792, and new names are added to the memorial every year. 

The tour includes a look at the Newseum, which showcases headlines around the world – over 500 front pages happening around the country today, plus phenomenal headlines from the past and tributes to the amazing journalists who brought them to us. You’ll also visit the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, which includes a look at the television set for America’s Most Wanted.

You’ll tour the Pentagon and the Supreme Court, plus visit the fascinating International Spy Museum, which is exactly what it sounds like. This museum has interactive exhibits, history and personal stories, plus tools and artifacts from the thrilling world of espionage. You’ll more thoroughly understand its important role in our safety, quite possibly develop an interest in the profession you never had before, and definitely sleep better at night. 

This entire tour opens your eyes to our Department of Defense and National Security Administration, plus everyday heroes who put themselves at risk as our federal, state, and local law enforcement officers. It’s a thrilling tour in one of the most exciting cities for students that the nation has to offer: Washington D.C.

Photo Credit: cliff1066 on Flickr

Acadia National Park is a different kind of landscape than the other featured parks last week. Whereas they were all in the west, Acadia is one of the eastern-most regions of the United States. Again, we owe this gorgeous landscape and its preservation to that common denominator of national parks, the visionaries of yesterday who managed to protect it for future generations to enjoy.

Acadia includes the coast of Maine, so this park has ocean shores in its varied scenic options. The park’s mountains include the tallest peak on the Atlantic coast, Cadillac Mountain. Acadia is a cluster of islands and includes many fresh water sources besides its ocean shores. One of the great learning centers in the area are the tide pools where students will be amazed at the plant and animal life.

Acadia National Park sits at the edge of deciduous and coniferous forests, adding to its rich variety. This park is a beautiful choice for educational tours. Its landscape is a learning center on its own. The area is rich with human history as well – consider for instance reading a sea captain’s letter from over 150 years ago. And its ranger-led programs highlight all kinds of educational aspects to the park. Acadia national Park has beautiful scenery, a powerful glimpse of America’s eastern coast, and is an inspirational setting for education.

Photo Credit: Lee Coursey on Flickr